Curious Pleasures (A Gentleman's Collection of Beastliness)

It has been rumored that the finest libraries in Victorian England kept this tome under lock and key, permitting access only to doctors and professors. Scotland Yard had a copy in its reference library, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself may have been allowed access to this work. There are some who claim that this encyclopaedic treasure of erotic pleasures—still shocking today—would cause any woman who gazed upon it to faint. This ironic, tongue-in-cheek look at the naughty sexual practices of Victorian England is at once hilarious and titillating, and as explicit as ever, and includes illustrations in the style of the time. With a design that leaves some wondering whether it isn’t indeed straight out of the 1890s, Curious Pleasures is as deliciously decadent as it once might have been.